Quotes of the day

posted at 11:04 pm on October 30, 2012 by Allahpundit

The expected force of the superstorm, combined with its timing and the growing importance of early voting in battleground states, had the potential to affect the outcome like no other weather event in U.S. presidential election history.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Allan J. Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington…

My advice to everyone is to hold your breath, say a prayer for everyone affected or donate to the recovery, wait as patiently as you can, and ignore any polls until this weekend at the earliest. Up until Sandy hit the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, this extremely tight race had been roughly stagnant for two weeks. Mitt Romney had a slight advantage in the national popular vote, and Obama had a slight advantage in the Electoral College. (A split between the popular vote and Electoral College I spoke about as a possibility in a column in June.) That is the last signal we had as of Monday a.m.

Sandy could turn this race in a way none of us anticipated. A few months ago, I said that there would be five events in October that would determine who was going to get elected: three presidential debates, one vice-presidential debate, and an unexpected event. I never anticipated the unexpected moment would be a historic hurricane hitting the most populous regions of the country. Just shows you there are some things in life we can’t predict or control—an important life lesson and political lesson. No we wait and see what the result of all this will be.

***

But Romney has one big advantage: He is free of the risk the president bears in failing, or even appearing to fail, to pull the levers of government to effectively respond to the expected devastation. And he has little choice but to limit his campaigning…

In September 2008, the financial crisis provided a perfect metaphor for Obama’s team, which had sought to portray its relatively young and indisputably inexperienced candidate as the steady, presidential hand and McCain as unpredictable. McCain made that contrast easy: He suspended his campaign, temporarily pulled out of a debate and raced back to Washington to pass the TARP bill. Only it didn’t work out that way. Many Americans hated the Wall Street bailout, most House Republicans defected from McCain and the bill was defeated on the House floor — before it was brought up a second time and passed.

McCain’s over-the-top response to the financial crisis was the opposite of George W. Bush’s too-little, too-late reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which, though it did not strike in the midst of an election, did more damage to Bush’s image than any other domestic issue during his presidency. At times since then, Republicans have shown extra sensitivity to natural disasters, abbreviating both their 2008 and 2012 national conventions because of hurricanes.

***

It’s as simple as this: If the storm knocks out your power, you can’t watch TV.

Both campaigns are planning to spend tens of millions of dollars on a final assault of campaign commercials. But Sandy could knock those plans off the air in such battleground states as Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and the lean Obama-state of Pennsylvania, which are all in the storm’s path. And while it won’t get a direct hit, battleground Ohio will also feel the wrath of Sandy.

“In areas without power and thus without either TV advertising or TV news, the race is likely to be frozen in place,” said Elizabeth Wilner, vice president at Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ad spending on broadcast and national cable TV.

***

Imagine a scenario in which Romney edges Obama by 100,000 in Ohio, 30,000 in Iowa, 15,000 in New Hampshire, and 50,000 in Virginia. That’s 41 electoral votes with a microscopic edge of 195,000 votes in four states. That 195,000 would be slightly more than a third of the average Democratic margin since 2000 in New Jersey and one-tenth of the average Democratic winning margin in California.

Here’s where Sandy comes in and could make a profound difference in terms of the popular vote and electoral vote…

Storm-diminished turnouts in [Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York] could cost Obama tens of thousands of popular votes. It could also cost him 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania. The implications are obvious in Virginia as well, but that state was always going to be close and the margin of victory understood to be narrow. There are ways Obama can win without Virginia but not many without Pennsylvania.

Under the Constitution, Congress has the authority to change the “first Tuesday in November” date for the presidential election. But as of Tuesday morning, there had been no serious discussion of moving the date of Election Day by the top leaders in the Republican-led House or the Democratic-led Senate, according to senior congressional aides. A spokesman for the House Committee on Administration did say that the committee “is closely monitoring the impacted states.”

Delaying the election might be an option given that hard-hit states are likely to be dealing with power outages and flooded locales that could extend well past Nov. 6. And with this presidential race projected to be close electorally, imagine the controversy and lawsuits that would inevitably result because enough back-up generators can’t be found to power electronic voting equipment, or if voters are displaced from home or can’t get to polling places…

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are telling states that the federal government would help them pay to move polling places, or to bring in generators next week to areas without power. But political and legal experts underscore that — even after 9/11, which occurred just before a mayoral election in New York — that the federal government has never put in place any solid plan to deal with such disruptions. “So we are left with the situation where the people who probably most know where we might stand on Election Day are the utility companies,” says Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University Law School in Columbus.

***

All of this chatter about delaying Election Day is ridiculous on every level. First, it’s not going to happen. Despite the chatter, the president has no authority to change Election Day. None. Zip. Nada. Those people who simply assume this is a presidential decision are betraying the degree to which they simply accept the legitimacy of an imperial presidency. Now I understand limitations on presidential power haven’t always curtailed this president. But if he tried to move or delay Election Day, it would be a national scandal and outrage (or at least it should be). The power to set the Election Day lies with the states. You’d have to change a vast patchwork of state laws (all the Constitution requires is that the states deliver their electors in mid-December). Also, Congress has a role to play because it determines, by statute, the timing of elections.

Chuck Todd who knows vastly more about politics than I do, should recall that 9/11 did not delay the New York mayoral race. It delayed the primary — which was scheduled on 9/11. Sandy made landfall eight days before the election — and wasn’t an act of war. If 9/11 is the best precedent for moving the federal election day, there is no precedent for it. And there is none. Sure, some local elections have been delayed for this or that reason. But this country held elections during the Civil War! Even FDR who violated a near-sacred tradition to run for a third term and fourth term, still ran for them.

I’m in AZ, but remember the old woodfloor rink on rt1. man, I was young. Mostly went to the one behind the mall. Childhood memories. It’s funny how they flood back. Your post and Belair just did that. Going to harford mall was an event in my day. It’s where you met girls. It was a wonderful time of life. Innocence.

I’m running the Linux version of FireFox. Doesn’t play well with OpenSuse.

I’ll check for NoScript as well.

AZfederalist on October 31, 2012 at 1:13 AM

With my Linux question, I meant that I know there are varying versions of Firefox out there which are compiled differently, and can provide tremendous performance increases. For instance, I am using PaleMoon, an alternate version of Firefox, and it is definitely faster than the regular version of Firefox on Windows XP.

Sorry you just don’t measure up. On election night you will have to be content with being the pivot man for Axelrod and Messina. Val will be consoling a sobbing Barry. However please check in here at HA so we can make fun.

Jackie, when HAL sings “Daisy”, I hope you’ll record it for us, such a sweet song. But, give him a little slack in the meantime … decorating and picking out drapes for a basement is surely a trying thing.

A poster, such as myself, who freely switches from academic, to slang, high culture to low culture, Downton Abbey to Detroit and everywhere inbetween; I find myself not the least concerned with your ajudication of my mental facilities. On the contrary, you’re most obvious inability to recognize code switching when you see it, belies a brain so feebly developed it is a miracle you have not been committed to Bedlam Hospital. Well, I suppose there is still time for you to get the cognitive treatment you so direly need. Till then, I shall pray for you and hope you may be delivered from your otherwise sorry state of mental affairs.

Two days later, he met the bodies when they were returned to this country, and took off for more campaign events.

Instead of admitting the attacks had been planned by al Qaeda, (which would have compromised his claim it had died along with bin Laden, but allowed the country to rally around him against its old enemy), Obama floated the claim that the riots erupted in rage against a 12-minute video made in America that very few people had ever seen. This was met with derision, and further tales of chaos concerning behavior before and during the crises eroded his foreign policy cred. An event that might have been made him look taller — a rally-around-the-flag moment — is instead becoming a Watergate/Chappaquiddick occasion, replete with cover-ups, cowardice, confusion and a politician in trouble, attempting to save his own skin.

By saving his skin, he’s looking to lose it. Had he chosen well, he might now be cruising to victory. He didn’t. He’s not.

So, people were worried that the big storm was taking Benghazi off of the table for Odumbo. I meant to remind all of you good folks about Odumbo’s foreign web site contributions.

All of that was a story for a couple of days about two weeks ago! Now?? It seems as if it’s been forgotten! This is a big deal, in my opinion. It should be revived. An American presidential candidate cannot take contributions from foreigners–no matter how much he agrees with them politically.

BTW, Haley Barbour was on Fox just drooling over how well Obama is doing with the hurricane effort. I think some Republicans see the writing on the wall and are trying to get on the President’s good side.

I have a quote of the day for you… Obama sucks… Hows that for a quote of the day…

SWalker on October 30, 2012 at 11:05 PM

It’s what I feel every day.

I have been watching the pundits/polls/idiots for months now, and it seems we’re still too close to call?

What do people see in this man?

ccrosby on October 30, 2012 at 11:15 PM

They are by and large just “useful idiots” who project all their wants and desires onto this inexperienced charlatan, Barack Hussein Obama. The man himself is an empty suit, but people want to believe in him. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

Morning.
I think the one and only person who sits on the Moaning Joe crew and scoffs at what the Valerie Jarrett script is for that morning is Mark Halperin. Schmoe gladly goes along with what he is told by his MSNBC bosses to save his ass.

Mark Halperin: “Elections are won every time by which way the independents are breaking. Every poll shows them breaking to Romney.”